


they were happy

by Areiton



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Character Study, Established Relationship, Grief/Mourning, James "Rhodey" Rhodes is a Good Bro, M/M, Protective Peter Parker, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, This is unrelentingly sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 23:15:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29892051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton
Summary: They had a good life, is the thing.They were happy.
Relationships: James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 14
Kudos: 81





	they were happy

**Author's Note:**

> Mind the tags and check the end notes for full warnings

Rhodey won’t leave his side. 

It reminds him, vaguely, distantly, of the decades ago funeral, when Rhodey arrived rain-soaked and bullied his way through the staff and the police and Obie to stand at his side, to gather him close and hold him while Tony shivered and never once cried. 

It’s like this, except--

It’s not. 

This isn’t just his best friend sitting with him at he mourns his husband. 

This is a suicide watch. 

He doesn’t speak, doesn’t send Rhodey away, just curls in the big empty bed where he was happiest and wonders--

How long until he goes? 

~*~ 

The funeral is a spectacle. 

Captain America is dead and sure there’s another, there’s Sam and there’s Bucky, but  _ Steve Rogers _ is dead, and the whole world wants to grieve. 

Howard’s funeral was the same way. A goddamn spectacle. 

It ran for Howard’s though, like even the weather decided to mourn, and this--Steve’s funeral is on a sun-bright day, with a crowd numbering in the thousands, hours of speeches and empty fucking words that all add up to one thing: 

He’s dead. 

He’s dead and he shouldn’t be, he  _ promised _ he would stay, would love Tony forever, and he’s  _ dead _ and Tony has no idea what to do with that. 

He sits in a crowd of thousands, Rhodey at his side and Peter on his left, and his wedding ring sits heavy on his finger, Steve tags rest above his heart, and he doesn’t speak, doesn’t listen. 

He doesn’t cry. 

~*~ 

The kids stay, in the aftermath. 

He expects Rhodey too, suspects he won’t leave for a while, still, but he expects the kids will go home. Peter has his duty as Spider-man, Harley has the company. Morgan is young enough that he doesn’t want her around, not when he’s almost catatonic with grief, but Pepper moves into the guest wing of the Brooklyn apartment, and doesn’t leave. 

He doesn’t say anything. 

When Peter crawls into the bed with him, and doesn’t speak because Peter has always understood grief, the raw pain of it, has always looked at the world with it bright in his eyes. He’d lost too much too quick, and Tony had never appreciated it, not the way he does now, when Peter next to him is merely silent company, because no words can ever ease the pain. 

Harley talks, chatters about SI and trips and memories and what he’s building. Morgan talks. She asks about Pops and when he’ll be back in the suit, and what he’s going to do now, and college looming ahead. Sometimes, she gets quiet and talks about the future, about the empty place where Steve should be, and Tony turns into her, wraps her in his arms while she cries, because he can’t  _ breathe _ through the grief, the crushing empty lonely, but his baby girl,  _ Steve’s _ princess--she’s hurting too. 

The kids stay and he hates them for it and loves them for it, when he can feel anything at all. 

~*~ 

He tries, once. 

Rhodey is on a call and Peter’s fallen asleep and it’s the first time since the funeral he’s been alone. 

His fingers tremble, and he fumbles it twice, the straight razor that Steve used to trim his beard, because he was an old-fashioned bastard. 

The pain and the blood bloom, bright red and beautiful and he stares at it, until spots swim behind his eyes and he slumps against the tub where Steve would hold him. 

Rhodey burst into the room, and he’s spitting curses, his eyes wide and wild and Tony feels guilt, a hot flash of something other than  _ numb _ and then he kind of loses the plot for a while. 

~*~ 

“You  _ bastard,” _ Rhodey chokes out, when he wakes up. 

His wrists are bandaged, all the way to his elbows, and he can’t breath through the disappointment, for a moment, but Rhodey--

Rhodey is sitting next to his bed, and his eyes are red-rimmed and wet, his hand clenched tight around the bedrail, and he’s staring at Tony with a desperation and fear Tony’s never seen before. 

It’s different from all the times he’s almost died and it’s ridiculous that Tony knows what that looks like, that fear and relief and exhaustion that only comes out when Tony has almost died. 

This is different. 

“You can’t do this,” Rhodey says. “You  _ can’t. _ The  _ kids _ , Tony, it’s--” 

“I don’t want to be here, without him,” Tony says, his voice raspy and wrong sounding. 

He can’t remember the last time he talked. His voice startles him, the loudness of it in the hospital room. “It’s not--he wasn’t supposed to go before me.” 

“But he  _ did,” _ Rhodey says, softly. “And he wouldn’t want this. You had a good life with Steve, Tones. He wouldn’t want you to quit living.” 

Tony doesn’t say anything, because he doesn’t know what to say and rolls to his side, curling up and squeezing the dogtags and ring hanging around his neck. 

~*~ 

They had a good life, is the thing. 

They were happy. 

But it wasn’t enough. They didn’t ever have enough time, because they wasted so much, fighting the world and fighting each other, a fucking decade lost to misunderstandings and Thanos and broken trust. 

They had a good life, those last ten years after they undid the Blip, when Peter was bright and shining and alive, and Morgan was growing up with them, Harley thriving under Pepper’s guiding hand. 

They were  _ happy _ and he thought it’d last forever. That after everything they’d given--they’d get to keep this. 

He was wrong. 

~*~ 

Rhodey doesn’t leave, and in the aftermath of his suicide attempt, the ranks around him--Pepper and Happy and the kids-- _ tighten.  _

He’s smart, is the thing. He knows that he failed, and he knows what that means, because Rhodey--Rhodey has never once given up on him, never backed down when he was convinced that Tony needed him, and he won’t now, either. 

So he squeezes the tags and the ring and gets out of bed, and says, “Rhodeybear, I need help.” 

He showers and trims his beard and apologizes to his-- _ their _ \--children. 

He  _ lives _ and it doesn’t feel like living. It feels like waiting, like he is already a ghost, haunting the tower, and he curls up in their too big, empty bed, hand clenched around Steve’s tags and ring and thinks,  _ Soon.  _

Rhodey and the kids--they’ll stay, for a while. Until they’re sure he’s safe. But not forever. 

He can wait. 

**Author's Note:**

> Explicit suicide attempt and suicidal thoughts are a pretty heavy theme throughout.   
> I TRIED to write this as Tony getting on with living without Steve and he wasn't having it. So here we are.


End file.
